Why NYC is my favorite city on this planet

I have often said, and been rebuked for saying, that the Big Apple is my favorite city on this planet. People often ask me why that is so, and I'm never able to give a wholly convincing argument - so here is an attempt in that direction.

Let me preface the rest of this post by saying that while I have lived in NYC for upto 3 weeks at a go, most of my visits have involved me living there for not longer than 2-3 days - always as a tourist. Mileage may vary for the people who have actually lived in the city.

To understand my undying love for NYC, we must go all the way back to the summer of '95. This was the first time I had left India - and guess which city I went to first?? I had been warned by my dad before arriving there that the place was just as dirty as Delhi and that I might indeed be disappointed once I got there. But, I wasn't. I remember falling in love with it during our drive back from JFK. I remember peeping out the window of our cab, admiring the huge glass buildings, the no. of cars on the roads, the long bridge with two levels (I think) that we were driving on. Imagine me as Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone 2 - when he first arrives in the city riding in on a cab. I was him - and I was loving every moment of it. The 3 weeks we spent there were just as much fun too. I don't remember spending much time with my dad (he was constantly at work), but my mother, brother and me had one of the best vacations I remember. We must have walked more miles in those 3 weeks than we did our entire lives before then. We covered everything from Central Park to the Wall Street to liberty island. We had coke in cans, and nice nike shoes, and a new remote controlled car. We had the nice weather (coming from Delhi in the summer - you can imagine), the friendly people (I remember dropping my coke in a McD's and the manager giving me a new one - on the house), the diversity of faces, the subways, the buses, the yellow cabs, the ferries to Liberty and Ellis island, the Empire State Building, the New York Style pizza etc. etc.

That trip was where it all started, but by no means is it the only source of love for that city. My next visit to the city came once I had moved to the states for college. Me and a few friends went on a crazy road trip our first spring break at UT. We lived in the city for 3 days and then went up to Boston. But those 3 days were amazing too - we walked up to Central Park and down to the Wall Street. We saw the Empire state building and the City Hall. We walked through the village and China Town. We saw our first apple store across from the NYU. I experienced our first police stop in the city. I saw my first snow fall in the US there.

I went there a couple more times too - when my folks had come to my brothers college for all of us to meet up, or me and my friends going there for new year's '07 (that was one crazy night). And then finally, before I left the US to come back to India, in Oct '07. NYC was my last stop - my final encore - the last city I was in, in the country I had called home for the past 5 years. That trip was memorable too (for many good and some not-so-good reasons). But what I remember most, was my drive to the airport from my cousins dorm room. There was nobody riding with me - and I wouldn't have had it any other way. I was taking in the city, the country, the people - one last time - not knowing when I would be back. And I remembered then, my first time driving into the city - only this time the buildings were getting smaller, not bigger.

However I might describe my feelings for NYC, most people won't understand it - and I don't expect them to. It is my favorite city in the world for personal reasons - they all have theirs. All I want to say is this - go visit NYC, live there for a bit, walk it's streets, talk to the people there, eat the pizza there, ride on the subway there. Then maybe you might fall in love with the city, just as I have.

Thoughts: The parent-child relationship

I've often found myself wondering (after talks with my folks/friends/co-workers, or after watching a movie/tv-show) about the kind of relationship a parent and child should share. Here are some thoughts.

Above all, I see this relationship as one of the few, one-way relationships a person has in his/her life - the road going from the parents and to the kids. Let me explain.

I think when a couple decides to have a child, they consciously make the decision that they are going to bring someone into this world, take care of it, groom it, have good times with it, enjoy it's company et al. Now, having made that decision, they also need to realize that it'll be their job to keep a watchful eye on them, keep 'em out of trouble, help them when they do get into trouble and generally give them everything they need and (hopefully) most of what they want. This is because you are their parents, their creators (humor me) if you will.

It is also a parent's responsibility to not burden a child with his/her expectations. You didn't create an object that you can return or discard if it didn't do what you thought it was supposed to do - NO! You had a child - another human being - who needs to make his/her own decision about their life - about how they want to live it. The child can have expectations of his/her parents (see last paragraph) but it should never go the other way round. And I'm not talking about the small stuff here - I speak of the whoppers - religious expectations, career expectations, marriage expectations, grandkid expectations and so on. Parents should never impose these on their kids - and the reason for this is quiet straightforward to my eye - it will stop your child from becoming who he can, but more importatnly, who he wants to be. And nothing, in my opinion, is a greater crime than stopping somebody from leading their life their way (there are certain exceptions).

I have often seen parents demand high ranks in school/college, a good job - an expectation to stick to the basics. They will try to impose their experiences onto you - not realising that there is at-least a generations difference between them and you - that their experiences, while useful, will not necessarily be the same as yours, and that you have the option (and might I say obligation) to experience them for yourself.

Now, I can't say children are completely absolved of any responsibilities towards their parents, but the flow is so one-sided (or at-least should be) that it's hard to see the other end of it.

So, to surmise, parents need to back off with their demands of their children - while they might have his/her best in their mind, they need to realize that they are not perfect at guessing what is good or bad for someone - that decision, in almost all cases, should be left to the person being talked about, to decide for them self.

My movie going experiences in Bangalore...

In my last post, I'd said that there will be more about watching movies in India - well here it is.

I've been out a few times now - to watch movies in Bangalore. They have all been Hindi movies (partially 'cause the people I go with don't enjoy watching English movies, and partially 'cause I'm making up for all those years I didn't go to the movies and watch a Bollywood flick) and inevitably, they have always been bad experiences. Let me start with a list of all the things that happen when you go to see a movie here:

• You will have a hard time getting tickets to a new movie (owing to the very few "multiplexes" in the city).
• You will have a hard time finding parking
• You will pay an obscene amount of money for the services being provided (and I'm not talking about the bad movie here)
• You will be given, what can best be described as black water with sugar, instead of Coke for Rs. 30.
• You will be ushered into the hall by a guy standing at the entrance checking your tickets (this is a bittersweet thing - figure it out)
• You will find your seat, and then notice the amount of dust on it.
• You will soon realize how little leg space there is
• At this point, you will start noticing the absolutely abhorrent state the hall has been kept in - the dust covered curtains, the speakers that look like they were bought in the 19'th century and never touched since and the dirty white screen in front of you
• After noticing all the dirt around you, your attention will move to the really small screen in front of you - and you'll start thinking that the wall of your house is probably bigger than this bitch in front of you
• Finally when the movie starts, your fears of the screen being small will be validated - with you squinting to see everything.
• You will also soon realize that there is some asshole around you who can't keep his/her mouth shut. They will gasp, laugh or scream loudly at the respective scenes, and when they're not doing that, they will keep saying this like "Duh", "I knew that", "He's going to die now" etc. etc.
• The flow of the movie will then be interrupted with an interval (a good or bad thing depending on your perspective - I hate it)
• You will go out to a throng of people in front of the single confectionery stand handing out a glass of "coke" or a box of pop-corns one at a time. God save you if you go to the restroom.
• You somehow get back to your seat with a coke and a box of pop-corns and now that really annoying bitch has added another piece of ammo to his/her arsenal - eating loudly.
• Then there will be some other asshole who will get a call in the middle of the movie and will take it - while still seated in his/her seat and will talk for like 2 minutes before shutting up.

I'm sure there are other items that can be added to this list - but by far, these are the ones that really piss me off. Even if I can deal with the parking, and the dirty toilets and the more than dirty surroundings, the fact that some asshole is sitting around talking throughout the film - as if giving us a running commentary just gets on my nerves. And while most of the issues I have listed to not manifest in the better theaters like PVR, this talking syndrome still rears it's ugly head in.

So...what prompted this post - well, I'd gone to see Thoda Pyar thoda magic on Saturday night, and witnessed all this - and it bugged the hell out of me. It would be some solace if the movie was good - but that would be asking too much off of a mainstream Bollywood movie - none are good - for some odd reason, they all think patronizing their audience is a succesfull business decision. I fucking hate it.

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